


What Motivated Naomi

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-09 09:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17999438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Naomi's life from childhood until Blair is about two





	What Motivated Naomi

What Motivated Naomi

  * by Bluewolf

Ted Sandburg watched four of the five children carefully as they rode at a steady walk across the exercise yard, assessing their control of the donkeys they rode. Rescued animals - as were all the horses, ponies and donkeys on his thousand-acre ranch. He rehomed them when he could, when he was sure they would be going to good, caring homes; sometimes where they would be ridden, sometimes as companion animals.

Some of the rescued animals weren't rehomeable; too badly treated, too badly traumatized ever to trust Man fully again, they lived semi-wild in a big field with a large open-ended barn where they could shelter from the worst of the weather. Two men were employed to clean the place and to make sure there was always hay there, and these were the only men these animals came close to trusting.

And he also kept some of the more trusting animals for the riding school where he taught children to ride.

Four of the five children before him were little more than beginners. The fifth was his daughter Naomi, roped in - as usual - to encourage the sometimes nervous beginners, to help persuade them that once a horse - or in this case a donkey - started to go faster than a walk, its rider didn't automatically fall off. Because it was amazing how many children were brought to his riding school, not because they wanted to learn to ride but because their parents wanted them to learn.

Though Naomi had reached an age - and a size - where she could barely pass for much the same age as these just-old-enough-to-go-to-school kids.

Ted glanced sideways at the four sets of parents watching this, the sixth lesson their children were getting.

They reached the end of the yard, and turned. Ted waved, and Naomi urged her donkey to a trot. The others followed. As they reached the opposite end of the yard, they slowed, Naomi turned with a glance at her father and, as he nodded, began to canter back across the yard, once again followed by the others.

Ted made his way across to the parents. "I think they're ready to move on," he said. "One more day in the yard, this time on ponies, and then I'll take them out and around a couple of fields. They're all doing extremely well." He waved again, and Naomi began to lead the other children around the yard at an easy canter.

"When will you advance them to jumping?" one father asked.

"Not for a few weeks," Ted replied patiently. There was always one who wanted his kid to run before it could walk. "They have to gain a little more confidence in their ability to handle a pony first."

"But I saw that girl - " he pointed to Naomi - "jumping her donkey over a log while the others were getting mounted."

"Yes, but Naomi is eight, and she's has been riding for almost five years," Ted said. "I've been getting her to ride with the beginners for a while - I've found it helps sometimes nervous beginners to have a competent rider close to their own age riding with them."

"Jackson isn't nervous!" the father snapped.

"I did say 'sometimes'," Ted reminded him. "But even normally confident kids can get just a little stressed with they realize how far from the ground they are, once they're on a horse. That's why I begin them on donkeys, and only progress to ponies after they've had five or six hours' practice." He was again watching sideways as the children continued to canter around the yard. The four beginners certainly seemed confident enough, and he nodded to himself.

Yes. These ones would all do well. But he wondered how well the next batch of beginners would do, without Naomi's quiet confidence to encourage them.

***

Ted Sandburg died in his sleep, suddenly and unexpectedly.

A cautious man, his will had been written years earlier. That part of his ranch that homed the horses and donkeys he had rescued over the years and ran in collaboration with the local vet, close though it was to his house, he had left to his vet partner, along with enough money to keep it running for several years - he knew that Jack Innes would continue to raise funding for it, the money was merely a safeguard. Half of the rest of his money he left to Naomi, and the other half to his wife.

The remaining 900 acres of the ranch - devoted to sheep, cattle and a fair stretch of arable land - he left to his wife, who immediately split the land into segments and sold those segments to five neighboring ranchers.

Jack Innes promptly gave Denise Sandburg an offer for the house, which she accepted, then moved away to Fort Worth, where her family lived. She had loved Ted enough that she had moved to his ranch without complaint, but with Ted gone she was happy to move back to urban life. The local small town was far too rural for her preference.

The one who was unhappy - desperately unhappy - was Ted's daughter Naomi.

Sixteen-year-old Naomi had loved living on the ranch, loved working with the horses, loved helping her father teach young children to ride, and within twenty-four hours of reaching Fort Worth she knew that she hated the city, and as well as desperately missing her father, found herself desperately missing her beloved horse. She knew that Uncle Jack would take good care of Inca, provide for all Inca's needs, but who in this concrete jungle would take care of her needs?  Certainly not her mother, who had already made it clear that she expected Naomi to find far, far more interesting things to do in the city than spending her free time riding!

Though Naomi wasn't really surprised. Her mother had been subtly hinting for years, ever since Naomi's eleventh birthday, that riding, helping with the horses, helping round up cattle in season, helping with the harvest, weren't feminine pursuits, and that not even a farmer would look for a wife in the tomboy her husband seemed to be encouraging Naomi to be.

The only redeeming factor of being in Fort Worth was the school.

Naomi liked the school and thoroughly enjoyed her lessons. She didn't much care for her fellow pupils; she knew, and knew well, that if they hadn't known her family was rich, she would have been totally ostracized. As it was, they... tolerated her, she supposed was the best word.

When Donny Franks asked her out, a few days after her seventeenth birthday, she hesitated for less than a moment before refusing, saying simply that she had promised her father she wouldn't go out with anyone until she was eighteen. It was a lie, but she had more than a suspicion that his interest wasn't her but the money he knew her family had, and she smiled cynically to herself, for she knew she wasn't the multi-million heiress he supposed her to be. Most of her maternal grandfather's considerable fortune would go to his two sons; Denise would be left something, but it would be only a token amount; Robert Silverman's view was that women should be supported by their husbands. And his grandchildren? They might be left a token sum - but equally likely, they could well be left nothing.

Oh, Naomi wasn't poor - her share of her father's money would keep her in relative comfort for many years; she hadn't had to touch it at all so it was gaining interest all the time. While Naomi was still underage her mother supported her, paid for everything she needed... though when she considered her mother's life style, Naomi suspected that Denise would run out of money in a few years.

It was possible that once that happened, Denise would expect Naomi - and the rich husband she kept hinting Naomi should already be trying to attract - would keep her in the style she had adopted since Ted Sandburg died.

No. If Denise did in fact end up virtually destitute, Naomi would give her an allowance, enough to live on if she was reasonably frugal, but Naomi had no desire to be left bankrupt because her mother didn't have the sense to live within her means.

***

If Naomi was surprised when she was invited to join some of the other girls at lunch time a few days after she refused to go out with Donny Franks, she chose not to say so. Even when the girls mentioned Donny - and how had they learned that he had asked her out? - Naomi just shrugged and repeated the lie, that she had promised her father...

"But your Dad's dead, isn't he?" Mariah Straven asked.

"Yes, but a promise is still a promise," Naomi replied.

That started a discussion of whether a promise made to someone who would never know if it had been broken needed to be kept - depending, of course, on what it was.

"You don't need to be as old as eighteen to go out with someone," Cathy Moore insisted. "If he expected that of you, your Dad was just being old-fashioned. I've been going out with boys since I was sixteen."

Naomi looked at her. She had heard gossip, and knew that the boys considered Cathy an easy lay. "It's not just that," she said. "I don't really want to marry, anyway, so what's the point in going out with someone? What I really want to do, once I'm eighteen, is to go back to where I grew up, and help Uncle Jack run the horse and donkey sanctuary Dad started. Being here is just a sideways detour until I can get back to doing what I really want to do."

And from the look on their faces, she knew instantly that these city-bred girls would never understand the kind of thing that she considered important.

***

The lunch group broke up, the other girls hurrying away, and as she began to make her solitary way back towards school Naomi found herself strangely absent-minded. Afterwards she had a vague memory of someone speaking to her, but her next clear memory was of awakening from a sound sleep behind a shed standing in a corner of the school playing field.

She sat up, puzzled, and looked at her watch. Nearly 6 o'clock. She thought back, and had no memory of the afternoon at all; her last memory was of leaving the small cafe where she had had lunch with several other girls.

Strange.

She headed for home, slightly concerned about the unusual sleepiness that had caused her to fall asleep behind the storage shed and not sure how she got there, but not worried enough to say anything about it when she got home.

However, a few weeks later, she realized she was pregnant.

Pregnant? How?

And then she remembered that afternoon. Had someone somehow drugged her so that she lost consciousness, raped her in her sleep then left her to awaken naturally when the effects of the drug wore off?

It was the only thing she could think of.

After considering things for a day or two, she packed a few clothes, left a note that said simply, "Dear Mom, I don't like it here. I'm heading off to see something of the world. Naomi."

Then she walked away from the Fort Worth house.

Naomi couldn't touch the majority of her money till she was eighteen, but she had a bank account her father had opened for her when she was nine, and there was a reasonable amount of money in it. Her first stop was the bank, where she withdrew most of that money, then headed back to the Sanctuary - she was sure Uncle Jack would give her a home for a few months, and deny all knowledge of her if her mother thought to check with him if she thought Naomi might have gone back there.

She was right. Uncle Jack was glad to see her, glad of her help around the place, surprisingly understanding when she explained about the lost afternoon when, she suspected, she had been raped and left pregnant.

***

A few weeks after Naomi's son was born, Uncle Jack came to her. Denise had finally contacted him, asking him if he had seen anything of Naomi. He had said 'no', but wasn't sure he had convinced her. It might, he suggested, be best if she moved away for a while; she could always come back in a month or two - there would always be a home as the Sanctuary for her, and once her mother had definitely established that she wasn't there, it should be safe enough - especially once her eighteenth birthday had come and gone.

Naomi agreed, packed a small case, took young Blair and headed off.

At first unsure where she wanted to go, she fell in with a group of hippies. They welcomed her, and she travelled on with them. She sent Uncle Jack the occasional letter, but decided not to go back to the Sanctuary until she was twenty-one. Denise might protest that although Naomi was over eighteen she was still subject to her mother's authority; once she was twenty-one nobody could insist that she was 'still a child'.

However, she never did go back to the Sanctuary. When Naomi was twenty, Uncle Jack - who had continued to work as a vet - was killed by a bad-tempered bull he was treating on a neighboring farm. Uncle Jack's son Hank, who had worked at the Sanctuary with his father, took over the running of it, but Naomi - although she got on well enough with Hank - felt no need to go back and help him the way she would have been happy to help his father. The one thing she did do, however, after checking her finances, was give Hank a monthly sum of money for the board and feeding of Inca. Her one regret was that she was unlikely ever to see Inca again.

Her travels had all been around America; now she saw about getting a passport. It was time to see rather more of the world.

***

After she had obtained passports and started travelling outside America, Naomi quickly discovered that travel with a two-year-old child in tow was not as easy as travelling with a younger child. Blair was perpetually restless, inquisitive, trying to explore everything...

During her pregnancy, she had occasionally thought that it might be wisest to give the child for adoption, but when he was born she instantly knew that she wanted to keep him. Now she found herself occasionally wondering if keeping him had indeed been a mistake. Then she reminded herself that he would not remain two years old for ever. As he grew older life would become easier.

Naomi sometimes thought back to that strange day when she had lost an afternoon. One of the girls she had lunched with that day had to have slipped something, some drug, into her food or - more likely - the juice she had been drinking. Had only one of them been responsible, or had they all known? They had certainly scattered quickly enough. And that afternoon, of which she remembered nothing - someone - Donny Franks? - had raped her, leaving her pregnant.

At least whoever it was didn't know he had left her pregnant, would never know. None of those girls would. Nor would her mother, whose reaction would certainly be one of annoyance that her daughter would now be unacceptable to one of the rich men of Fort Worth.

In fact, Naomi knew that her mother would never believe the truth; she would always think that Naomi had willingly slept with someone; probably more than one when she was unable to say who had fathered her child.

At least Uncle Jack had been sympathetic, understanding... Damn the bull that had killed him, anyway! Although the farmer who had owned it decided that as a known killer, it was too dangerous to keep and sent it for slaughter within the week.

She continued to write occasionally to Hank Innes, having asked him for the same promise his father had given her - that if Denise Sandburg ever contacted him, he would deny all knowledge of Naomi.

Her first foreign destination was Britain. The group of hippies she had met when she first left the Sanctuary had told her about one or two communes there. The ecovillage at Findhorn sounded interesting, and she headed first for it; but she soon discovered that life there didn't appeal to her. She was happy enough with the idea that everyone worked for the good of all, but felt that there was a lack of... something - privacy, she supposed, and after about a month she left and began a leisurely tour of Britain.

As they went, Naomi began to teach Blair responsibility. He was, she told him, responsible for his own things - his own duffel bag with his clothes and his only toy, a stuffed dog, in it. The first time he forgot about his duffel bag, leaving it behind as he ran on, anxious to see what was around the next corner, she slipped it into her own bag then followed him. They were on the bus taking them to Inverness when he realized he had left it behind. For some minutes she let him think he had lost everything - especially Wolfie, the dog - before she relented and told him she had it - "But if you leave it again, it's gone; I won't pick it up for you another time."

He never forgot again. One such fright was enough. The clothes in his bag didn't particularly matter - they had to be replaced every few weeks anyway as he grew bigger - but Wolfie was his pet, his companion, his confidante, and Blair couldn't risk losing Wolfie even though he lived in the duffel bag much of the time.

From Inverness they took a bus south-west down the Great Glen. Blair watched Loch Ness avidly, desperately hoping to see Nessie, but saw nothing except water and one boat chugging its way towards Inverness. He sighed resignedly as the bus stopped at Fort Augustus, then fell asleep as it carried on, until Naomi shook him awake at Fort William, which was as far as the bus went.

Naomi quickly discovered that there was nothing much to see in Fort William. She would have liked to climb the nearby Ben Nevis, if only because it was the highest mountain in Britain, and if she had been on her own she would have tackled it; but she knew it would be asking too much of Blair. Active though he was, there were limits to what she could expect him to be able to do.

She went in search of a tourist information centre. Yes, there were visitor attractions nearby, historical sites... but she would need a car to visit most of them.

She went around the centre, checking information leaflets - some were for other parts of Britain - and train and bus timetables...

It was at that point that she decided she would have to hire a car; or, rather, a succession of cars. Public transport would take them from one area to another, but too many of the places that looked interesting didn't have adequate public transport. Luckily she had realized, before she left America, that she might have to do that, and made sure she had a licence to drive in countries outside America. But to hire a car she would have to provide a permanent address...

No way was she giving the Fort Worth address. But the Sanctuary? That was a possibility. She checked the time, and calculated the time difference. Yes, Hank's day would have started by now.

She found a phone, and dialled the well-remembered number.

/Hank Innes./

"Hank, it's Naomi."

/Naomi! How are you?/

"Enjoying my time here... "

/I won't ask where you are. Your mother visited a few days ago, and I was glad I didn't know exactly where - I'm not a good liar./

"What did she want?" There was a resigned note in Naomi's voice.

/Apparently her father has died, and... / He hesitated.

"She doesn't have much money because she's spent it all, so she hoped to move in with me?"

/Well... yes. Apparently your grandfather left two thirds of his money to his older son, one third to the younger one, and nothing to your mother./

Naomi was already nodding to herself. "His view was that a daughter would  be married and her husband would support her, so she wouldn't need any money from him. And Mom never did have much sense when it came to husbanding her resources. Dad left her plenty, but she never seemed to realize that once she'd spent it, it was gone - there would be no more. At least what he left me is secure - she can't lay any claim to it. Is she still living with her brother?"

/He's given her a month to find somewhere else. But Naomi - if she can't get hold of you... could she try to have you declared dead?/

That was something Naomi hadn't considered. "I think I'll have to phone Dad's lawyer."

/Good idea./

"Anyway, the reason for this call - Hank, I've realized that the easiest way to see something of the tourist attractions here is to hire a car. But to do that I'll need to give a home address. Can I use the Sanctuary as my home address?"

/Yes - feel free to use this as your home address any time you need one. You can refer to me as your cousin - well, you called Dad 'Uncle', after all./

"Thanks, Hank."

They spoke for a few more minutes, with Hank reassuring her that Inca was enjoying life as a (mostly) companion horse, although Hank did take him out occasionally for the exercise, and Naomi promising to phone from time to time.

Then - although she was positive her father had taken steps to make sure her inheritance was secure - she phoned the lawyer, glad that his phone number was in the address book she carried. No way was her mother going to leave her destitute! Her conscience wouldn't let her leave her mother totally without money, so she would do what she had already decided, give her mother a monthly allowance... enough to live on, though not in the style to which she had become accustomed! There would be paperwork to sign, so she gave the address of the hotel where she was staying, unhappy about having to live there until it arrived, but resigned. As she rang off after arranging everything, Naomi acknowledged to herself that she would have to be careful not to overspend - not that she was particularly extravagant. She had been living off some of the interest from the money her father had left her, adding the rest to her capital, but much of that interest would be taken up now by providing for her mother (as well as the money for Inca), and she needed to ensure that her capital remained intact.

Well, if necessary, from time to time she could get a job somewhere to give herself a little extra money.

***

Naomi secured a rental car that she could return in Glasgow, drove it short distances to several places around Fort William to accustom herself to driving on the left, then, after the paperwork arrived from the lawyer, signed it, posted it back, then headed on south, following the coast road. At Glencoe village she turned east, drove through Glencoe in order to see it, then once she reached the flat ground of Rannoch Moor she turned, drove back through Glencoe and headed on south down the coastal road.

She lingered in Kilmartin Glen, visiting several of the many Neolithic monuments there and, finally, six days after leaving Fort William, heading on down the side of Loch Lomond and into Glasgow, where she returned the car to the hiring firm.

Then she headed for Central Station, where she - and Blair, of course - caught a train south.

Next stop was the Lake District… then, perhaps, Wales… and after that? The world!




 

**Author's Note:**

> This was written (a while ago) in three parts for Sentinel Thursday. I'd originally planned to take it a little further, but finally decided to leave it here.


End file.
